The Discovery Australia

Hokitika Guardian, 16 September 1922, Page 3

The Discovery Australia

The question of the original discovery of Australia is a theme of perennial and absorbing interest. Many d 'forent theories have been quite in c -Delusive. A time collies when investigators are on firm ground with the authentic records of explorers, hut before that there is profound darkness, illumined here and there hv gleams of legitimate inference and of hazardous .‘peculation. In “The Discovery ot Australia,” Professor G. Arnold Wood of the University of Sydney, has made it his business to review nil the evidence, and to sift ascertained , r avl from more or less plausible conjecture. 11 is work is one of lirst-rate importance !t supersedes all other treatise, on the subject, and will, wo imagine, tor long remain the final authority. Profess"! Wood’s hook is a monument of assiduous research, lie lias examined most exhaustively all the material available, including much that was inaccessible to previous inquirers, and in this connection lie pays a gracious i.-ibiitu to the invaluable Mitchell collection. There is, however, one set ol important documents which he had. perforce, to omit. The •'Journal” and "Instructions” of Captain Cook, which historians,have consulted hitherto, are copies; the originals in Conk’s handwriting were supposed to have been lost. Not long ago they came to light in Yorkshire, and Professor Wend has not had.an opportunity of inspecting them. But it is improbable that his narrative would he appreciably affected hv these documents, as the copies are I:' lievetl to he exact. And although Professor Wood lias delved deep into the musty, dusty annals of bygone days' his literary method is not that ot the dry-as-dust school. His manner is as effective as his matter; Ins style has a felicity, a vivacity, and a lightness of touch which prevent a single page from being dull. Professor Wood begins with a consideration of early theories with regard to the existence of a Southern Continent. The Greeks, with their passion for symmetry and correspondence, argued that there must lie a great mass of land on the other side of the sphere hut held that it must forever remain itiivisitoil because ot the insuperable harrier presented by the fierce heat of the tropics. The Egyptian cartographers had some sketchy knowledge of the East and the East Indies, hut during the Dark Ages the spirit of scientific- inquiry was lost, and it philosophers thought of a Southern Continent at all they depicted it in colours of the purest fantasy. Thus, an Italian scholar speaks ot "unknown nations called the Antipodes, who inhabit a sort of Southern Utopia, with “towns, castles, and empires,” and "fight great battles.” Meanwhile what was the real Australia doing during those neons of obscurity i 1 In the islands hard by dwell a race ot enterprising seafarers, the Malays, who would make nothing of a journey to the coast of Australia. Vet, as Professor Wood points out, there is sea reel v any trace of foreign inllnenre upon the indigenous Australians. “Their civilisation was a very pour thing, lint it was their own. Throughmil, Australia manners and customs' were essentially the same, almost the verst manners anil customs in the world.” How are we to explain the absence ot any Malay influence t Simply by the fiu;t that Australia had no attractions to oiler. No doubt the Malays visited the north-western shore's of the continent, hut, as did later visitors, found them forbidding and inhospitable. The men were fierce and tlie women lacked charm ; there was nothing to he got hut fish. Hence tlie Malays were at no pains to lift the veil which hid Australia from th" lest of the world. However, during the fourteenth century we hear some possible rcterenees to Australia. Marco Polo was underMood to speak of great and rich continents far away to the south of Java, although, ns Professor Wood observes, his words do not actually hear that interpretation. Still the misunderstanding had the effect of turning men’s attention to that region. A curious episode is related of one Vnvtliema, a Portuguese, who made a voyage to .Tara, The captain of the boat

presumably a Malay or an Arab, was | asked how he steered now that the j north star was no longer visible. The j captain pointed to four or five stars, among which was one winch he said was opposite to the worth star. He also said that on the other side oi Java, towards the south, there were ot her races who navigated by this group of stars, and added that beyond Java the day did not last more than four hours, and it was the coldest clime in the world. A day of four hours means a latitude of 15 degrees further south than Tasmania. A journey to Tasmania by the Malays at that period was surely an impossible achievement. Was-the captain thinking of a voyage to northern Australia and immensely exaggerating the distance ;or was lie siinplv spinning a yarn for the entertainment of his ineuisitiv? passengers? We must remember that travellers’ tales have always figured'largely in early manuals of 'geography, and the old cartographers have had to rely for not a little ot their material on “scraps of information embedded in the romantic narratives which the travellers had dictated to friends far more interested in marvels than in science.”

Perhaps the most important chapter is that which discusses the claims ot the Portuguese to have been the first discoverers of Australia. In the firsi half of the sixteenth century several maps were published based upon Portuguese originals,,and containing a sketch of the coastline of the so-called Java la Grande or Terra Australis. These maps have led some historians to “regard it as highly probable that Australia was discovered by the Portuguese between the years 101 l and 1529, and almost a demonstrable certainty that it was discovered before 1512.” The exponents of this theory profess to be able to explain many features of these maps in terms of modern Australian geography. Professor Wood does not dismiss this theory lightly, hut lie thinks that its weakness is that it asks us to believe too much. He thinks it exoeedinglyy unlikely that at this period voyages were made which would have enabled eosiiiographers to draw maps of so extensive an area. The theory rests on the assumption that between 1512 and 1536 Portuguese and Spanish seamen sailed the wluile length of the west coast to Cape Le-nwin, and tlie whole length ol the east coast of Tasmania, and that they surveyed those huge coast lands with the nccuracv, if not ot a Cook or of a Flinders, at least ol a Columbus or a Vespucci. Yet in contemporary narratives written by men wlm must have known everything knowahle about this n atter there is no record, no hint, of a single voyage of discovery on those coasts. Professor Wood agrees that t}»(» Voitiuruose quite couceiva' lv have had some slight knowledge of western coast; they might well have derived it from the Malays. They might even have seen some part of the western const, while sailing to or from the .Moluccas. But Hie ' probabilities hardly go beyond that, and the author contents himself with the observation that he would he willingly persuaded to accept the cautious opinion of Flinders ti at "the direction given to some parts nf the coast apnroaehos too near to the truth for the whole to have been mark'd from eoiiicetuiv alone.’ Next the Spams!) take 'he field. Spanish expeditions set on*, from the American i i I niies to penetrate the mysteries ol the Pacific. Qiiiros follows Meml-ana. and Torres t-uiros; and with Torres the veil is finally withdrawn. Yet from Torres himself we I’nrn nothing. His i t ice a. c is exasperating. Here at last is a man who definitely saw the Southern Gmitinent. "He bad sailed in search ol' it under a captain whose s; „! LI -KM with passionate desire ot its glories. Quires, the Moses ot the great enterprise, had seemed to get vision of the continent, and then for lack of half an hour’ had sailed home with ‘sorrowful discourses.’ And now |.,v, wr Torres, the Joshua ol <»»’ st rv actually in touch with the 1 n>' wise ! I.and- end he has not a word to snv about it.” But henceforth we are In the realm of escortume..l tact. Ihe Dutch and the English turn their eyes southward, and 'heir bind naviga ors l ave left their names writ large on tin. Australian man. . _